{I Heart You}

One of my Craft Night companions, Pat, came up with a brilliantly crafty idea. She took a previous project, mentioned in the last post, and gave it a little Valentine's Day spin!

Using the cover of Martha Stewart's magazine as inspiration, she decided to make hers out of paper cupcake liners. Martha's was made from real flower carnations. Pat's can be used over and over again! Thanks for the great idea, Pat. For mine, I used four different varieties of liners all in shades of red and white.

I cut out a piece of cardboard into the shape of a heart then covered it with some cute striped fabric.  This is the back...not that anyone will ever see it, but I couldn't leave it plain brown cardboard, now could I?

I glued the edges of the fabric around and then started hot gluing the liners to the form, starting at the border.  I used the eraser side of a pencil to press into the center of the liners, then used my hand to fold the sides down onto the pencil.  I squirted some glue onto the end and again, used the pencil to press it onto the cardboard form.  The pencil saves your fingertips from getting burned too! 

Here is the finished product.  You'll have to forgive me for the quality of the photos.  I took them with my iPhone so the colors are way off.  The finished product looks more pink than red.  You can see I added a silk rose as an embellishment as well as a red polka-dotted hanger. 

As Always, Stay Cozy!
Mandy

{4th of July in January!}

If you talk to any creative type, they'll tell you that they have tons of unfinished, half-started, well-intentioned projects lying around their house.  Well, I'm no different.  Case in point...my wedding day scrapbook.  I was married for about 8 years and have been divorced for over 2.  While I don't forsee myself finishing THAT project (ha-ha!), I have the itch to finish a lot of others! 

As us homebodies do, we like to hibernate in the winter inside our little caves.  I've got plenty of time to craft now that the cold, cold winter is settled in.  So, I pulled out this project that I've had half finished since last summer.  One of the Craft Night projects at my sister's house was making wreaths out of patterned paper cupcake liners.  

Mine was a take on "stars and stripes".  I couldn't find starry ones so polka dots would have to do.  Well, I underestimated how many liners I'd need so I had to quit early.  Since I ordered them online, it wasn't like I could run to Michael's or AC Moore to grab more.  They do, however have a nice selection there, so if you're interested in doing this project, they'd be a great resource.  Months later, even after I ordered more, they just sat in their package on my craft table.  When I finally finished the wreath portion, it sat un-decorated for yet more months!! 

Finally, this past weekend, I went in my craft closet to find something and there it was....staring at me...mocking me.  "You'll never finish me."  So I grabbed it, plugged in my hot glue gun, and dug into my vintage button and ribbon collection.  One nasty hot glue gun burn later, here you have it! 

As Always, Stay Cozy!

Mandy

Featured Artist...Mara May!

I'll have to admit that I'm not an avid blogger, like my sister. Months will pass without a post on my poor neglected blog. However, I do love the opportunity to post when there's really something great to write about. I was recently scanning my sold items in my Etsy shop, One Cozy Nest, and came across a vintage set of Crazy 8s cards with colorful circus-themed pictures and numbers.
When I visited the buyer's Etsy shop, Mara May, I discovered that she had used one of the cards in a wonderfully whimsical party hat! I just love knowing that one of my vintage items passed through the creative hands of an Etsy artist. Just look at how adorable this thing is! See the cute little elephant card down towards the bottom? I just love all of the colors, textures, and little details Mara May put into this fun hat. You can see the hat, handmade scrapbooking kits & embellishments, and lots of other georgous goodies by Mara May right here in her shop. Enjoy, and happy crafting!

{Hey There Shorty}

Yeah, I'm talking to you. I called you short. Okay, let me be PC...vertically challenged. Are you walking around wearing jeans or pants that you hemmed yourself? And are you embarassed that you can tell they're hemmed? I know I am. I'm 5'3" and the "short" length jeans are about 2 inches too short and the "average" jeans are way too long. Not that anyone really looks down towards my shoes on a regular basis (guys usually stop at my boobs, haha), but it bothers me when I spend $60 bucks or so on a pair of jeans (gasp!) and I have to chop them up and they end up looking like a home-ec project. One time I even used gold thread that was made for jeans. It looked okay, but that nice worn look to the bottom edge of the jeans was missing. Enter Fig and Plum. They posted a tutorial about hemming jeans like a pro. It's so stinkin' easy that I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself. Here is a link to the tutorial that you can download and save to your computer. Here is a modified version from Dacia Ray that tells you how to deal with flared jeans. Why not let these adorable vintage hem clips help you do the job? You can find them in my Etsy shop, called One Cozy Nest.

{Welcome Fall}

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since Memorial Day! That goes to show you that I've been kind of busy the past few months. I went back to work at the end of June so ever since then, I've had about 45 hours less a week to do the things I really love to do. My spare time seems to be filled with laundry and other unpleasant chores.

This is a photo of Cooper with his big cousins, Alex (left) and Jake (right). Summer's officially over but we sure had a great one. Check out my other blog at http://www.babybolis.com/. People ask me how it is going back after having a year off with Cooper. Well, it kinda sucks but it kinda doesn't at the same time. It still feels wrong to me to pay someone to raise my child and I wish I could stay home with him every day. Trish gets to spend more time with him than I do and I'm jealous! :) But lucky for us, she's great with him and she genuinely cares about the kids. Coop loves her and gets all excited when Jeff pulls up to the house. A lot of times he doesn't even look back at Jeff to say goodbye, he just make a bee line for the toys. Trish's job as a childcare provider is highly admirable and I don't know how she does it. I'm not sure I'd be able to pull it off. This is where it's nice to go to work in the morning....to relax and to enjoy the quiet. I like what I do and enjoy being around other adults and having a purpose other than wiping butts and sticky faces. But when it comes down to it, I think I could do a better job and feel much more rewarded as a stay-at-home mom. So that is it in a nutshell!

Now, onto more exciting things...my new venture, One Cozy Nest, has been pretty successful in the last couple months. I've been able to sneak away on a couple Sunday mornings to go flea marketing, one of my favorite things to do. I look for interesting things like old books, flash cards, vintage games, and paper ephemera, etc. Then I sell them to other creative people like artists, crafters, and collectors on Etsy.com. I made the decision to put handbag making on the back burner for now. Maybe I'll go back to it or maybe one day I'll haul off and sell all my supplies, I'm not sure right now. But what I do know is that I'm bored and competition is tremendous. So I'm shifting gears to focus on One Cozy Nest and on making things for myself, friends, and loved ones.

Speaking of...my sister and I were recently talking about my handbag boredom. She asked me if I had any interest in making dolls. I hadn't even thought about it for a second until that day but I figured I'd give it a try. So, I came up with a couple sketches and made a doll in the shape of a bird. Her body is made from linen, her wing and breast are vintage fabric, her hair is yarn, and her face is hand embroidered. The wing moves on the vintage button that I attached it with. I added a nice detail of a vintage pearl pendant for her necklace and styled her hair in a pony tail in the back with a twisted section on each side. Right now she sits on my red couch with my handmade pillows and growing art collection in the background. Here are some pics:

Then, for my second doll, I made a black folk doll named Celie and gave her to my sister, who loves The Color Purple. Last year I bought her tickets to see The Color Purple on Broadway and Celie is the main character. If you've ever seen the movie, she's the character played by Whoopie Goldberg. Her body is eco-friendly felt made from recycled plastic bottles and her hair is black 100% wool yarn. Her face is hand embroidered and her dress is made out of vintage fabric in the color purple, of course! Here she is, sitting in my sister's back yard getting some fresh air:

I'm working on a third doll right now but I'm not sure what or who she'll be.

My Latest Project...

I've been sick with some kind of 48 hour bug the past two days, but luckily that has passed and I'm feeling great now! Here are some pictures of my latest project. I wanted to add some pizzaz to the big red couch in my living room, so with the artistic help of my sister, I made these great pillows. They're all made from natural-toned canvas. Each has a fabric backing of red & white striped fabric with an opening in the middle to insert pillow forms. One has a hand-painted letter "B" for my last name, of course, the other has just a "No. 3"...no real significance there, just that my sister painted it. The House Pillow, I designed myself, and I'm going to have my sister paint a number on it for me next time I see her. It has four windows that I made into photo frames by using clear plastic. I used the frames to display some old black & whites of my great grandmother, grandparents, and other relatives when they were young. The roof is red and white striped and the sky is baby blue with white polka dots to simulate clouds. The big red door is felt and has a tiny little vintage button as a door knob. Don't you love the awning over the door? That's so no one gets rained on while looking for their keys. I stitched the detail onto the shutters, door, and awning, which gives the pillow a kind of folk artsy feel. Anyway, I'm real proud of these so I wanted to show them off. Thanks for looking!

Family & Creativity

Good morning...actually, it's just after noon but it still feels like morning. I'm still in my PJs. We had a sleep over with my two nephews last night and their mom just picked them up. We had fun dressing up with Mr. Potato Head pieces. Cooper is down for a nap so I logged on for a quick blog entry.

I've been in a super creative mood lately and there are just so many ideas flying through my brain. I want to make so many things and there is just so little time in a day! I decided to re-organize a portion of my workspace recently, which has helped to spark some inspiration. There's something about seeing my ribbon all in a row that makes me feel good. I moved my cork board from it's old spot and hung it right over my ironing board so I'd be more likely to hang things from it. It's now my "inspriation board". Then I hung a favorite print of my sister's next to it. On the other side, closest to my cutting table, I hung a cool wrought iron planter box decoration I picked up at JoAnn Fabrics. It works well to hold my baby food and mason jars full of push pins, cutting tools, and various other things. Then, my favorite part of the re-org was hanging an old white shelf that I got at a yard sale YEARS ago. I wanted to hang it in a baby's room but when Coop came around, it didn't go with the theme really. I screwed two old curtain rod brackets to the bottom shelf so that I could hang all of my ribbon. They used to be in a shoe box all crowded and cramped and unorganized. Now they are in plain sight and I will be able to use them more easily. Lastly, I hung my thread spool holders on the wall instead of them taking up space on the table. Now I have more room to spread projects out while I'm sewing. That, my friends is my workspace upgrade. Ta-daaaaa!

Where I Work

Here's a little taste of where I do my crafting. Gotta love IKEA! My cutting table is from JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts, the cubby shelves, lighting, curtains, and desk are from IKEA. I'm lucky enough to have an extra bedroom dedicated just to my sewing and crafting. If I had to share the basement with my husband I'd shoot myself. Down there, I'd have to compete with sports and rude comedy shows blaring constantly in the background. Not to mention stinky farts and whatnot! Having our own space allows each of us to do what we like without getting in each other's way...then we meet up for date night!